It's Right To Question Its Motivation In Boatright Case And Beyond

AAU basketball is the Wild West of American sport. Of that, there is little doubt.

Yet in a desperate attempt to police impermissible benefits and under-the-table dealings that dirty the sport and compromise athletes before they set foot on a college campus, the NCAA must also be vigilant not to engage in Wild West jurisprudence.

Although they're not going to say anything publicly, folks top to bottom at UConn are worried about the wrath of the NCAA these days. The NCAA must be careful not to come off as needlessly punitive.

So let's start out with a young man's spirit.

To allow a freshman to travel halfway across the country only to have him pulled from a team meal to tell him he cannot compete in a game 16 hours away, well, it seems needless. When he has 400 people driving 125 miles to watch him play at Notre Dame — something that already was reported in the media — it seems almost cruel. Boatright, not surprisingly, was distressed.

Either the NCAA is not in tune with the everyday life of athletes they are investigating or is purposely callous to it. Are they that entrenched in its minutiae? Any way you look at it, the NCAA informed UConn late Friday, locked the doors and went home for the long holiday weekend.

See you Tuesday.

The first Boatright review took from mid-October to late November. Who knows how long this one will take?

Look, this is not easy on the NCAA either. There are many honorable AAU programs. There are also many dirty and dishonorable ones, seemingly built on feathering the nests of those who operate them. How AAU bosses direct high schoolers where to go to college could be a weekly segment on "60 Minutes" or "Real Sports." Stopping these pirates seems as impossible as stopping the drug trade.

Given that disclaimer, the NCAA too often comes off as the secret police, or at the very least like Wyatt Earp. The NHL has had Brian Burke, Colin Campbell and Brendan Shanahan. Major League Baseball has had Bob Watson and Joe Garagiola Jr. These chief disciplinarians give a public face and give answers to questions. Have they always been right? Of course not, but there is hard evidence of due process that the NCAA so often fails to describe and public accountability that the NCAA so sorely lacks.

The NCAA never seems to have to explain much of anything. So many decisions seem incongruous. While allowing Ohio State players to compete in the Sugar Bowl after they were found to have sold jerseys, etc., to a tattoo parlor owner, for example, the NCAA at the last minute pulled Baylor's Perry Jones III out of the Big 12 tournament. His mom had taken loans from an AAU coach to pay the rent and had repaid him. The NCAA seemed particularly cruel, although it was subsequently documented Jones accepted $700 in impermissible gifts, including a trip to an NFL preseason game, before he started classes at Baylor.

Still, why were Ohio State's suspensions delayed to the start of the next year, while Jones' started immediately?

These are the kind of incongruities that shout for legal representation. College coaches always seem to make out better than the schools and athletes. Maybe someone like Jay Bilas should step away from his announcing gig for a year and get an Athletes' Legal Fund started.

Boatright accepted a plane ticket, said to be valued at about $400, from his AAU program. The NCAA acted on information it received and gave Boatright a six-game suspension. The NCAA did what it needed to do. UConn may have seen it as harsh, but there are no complaints here beyond pointing out that Cincinnati's Yancy Gates got the same punishment for going Mike Tyson on Kenny Frease's face.

So why does this bubble up again two months later?

Jaeh Thomas, a cousin of Boatright's father [Mike McAllister] who has advised and trained with Ryan, gave his version to Rick Armstrong of the Aurora [Ill.] Beacon News.

"We know exactly who it is," said Thomas, identifying the source of the information given to the NCAA as a former boyfriend of Tanesha, Boatright's mother. "What the NCAA needs to get through their head is it's her ex-boyfriend, who also happens to be his dad's first cousin. Both families have pushed him out."

So now we have assertions that a relationship "gone bad" is the reason for Boatright's problems. While that's certainly messy, it should be pointed out that if everybody's former boyfriend pointed out improper benefits handed out by AAU teams, there wouldn't be enough players left to stage a proper March Madness.